This is the fourteenth year Customer Inter@ction Solutions has brought you the winners of its MVP (Marketing Via Phone) Quality Awards. In the ensuing years since we introduced the awards in 1993, we have been impressed by the growing sophistication of
the quality measures that have been introduced to the contact center by the leading-edge companies that apply for our MVP Quality Award. Over the years, we have seen new technologies adopted and the standards for a quality interaction refined and improved. Each of the following companies has demonstrated, through its MVP Quality Awards application, a true commitment to high ethical standards, stringent policies and challenging goals. Each of the award recipients is involved in a quality process that stretches from its human resource development to its implementation of technology to improve quality to taking a leadership role in promoting a positive public image of teleservices, and more. The following brief extracts from the extensive award-winning applications will give you a glimpse into what the companies provided as their standards for quality.On a 16-point essay, entrants described a specific teleservices program and its results, and explained their overall policies and procedures, including human resources, technologies, customer services, ergonomics and public image that are used to establish, sustain and measure the program’s quality. Judging the applicants was an arduous task, and the scores were not given lightly. Judging involved assigning a numerical point value from 1 to 10 for each of the 16 evaluation points. The average essay length was 17 pages...enough to give an editor a pronounced squint afterwards.Through the winners’ essays, we learned that there are countless individuals within these organizations whose combined efforts and teamwork have contributed to elevating their companies’ marketing via phone practices to the forefront of the industry. We’ve shared some of the most compelling items on the winners’ application essays with readers. To all of the winners, congratulations.— Tracey Schelmetic
| Gold Award Winners |
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APAC Customer Services Inc.
(b-to-b inbound)
Deerfield, IL
www.apaccustomerservices.com
What do you do for customers that gives them the impression of quality and high ethical standards?
“Complete background checks are performed on each representative/staff member prior to placement. We maintain a workplace with no paper to secure personal customer data. Representatives and team leaders are required to shred all paper at the end of the day and team leaders frequently walk through the floor and perform a sweep to retrieve and discard any stray paper. Desktops are required to protect customer data by automatically switching to a screen saver with two minutes of inactivity.”
ClientLogic
(b-to-b integrated)
Nashville, TN
www.clientlogic.com
What do you do for customers that gives them the impression of quality and high ethical standards?“ClientLogic’s Fraud Examination Unit (FEU), headed by a former FBI agent, ensures that ClientLogic’s clients and their customers are protected from criminal activity. The FEU is responsible for identifying and eliminating vulnerabilities in the pre-sales, e-commerce and post-sales processes, as well as customer service processes, to shield customers from fraud. The FEU also serves as the liaison with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, other law enforcement organizations, fraud examiners from other companies and professional security and anti-fraud organizations. By using this Anti-Fraud Network, the FEU maintains a high level of preparedness against new and creative frauds.”
Cross Country Automotive Services
(b-to-c integrated)
Medford, MA
www.crosscountry-auto.com
How do you measure customer satisfaction? “One hundred percent of all customers who contact Cross Country Automotive Services for service are requested to provide real-time feedback by completing a survey via the Web or through IVR automation. In addition, we mail customer satisfaction surveys to approximately five percent of our completed calls daily. These surveys have 12 questions related to various aspects of the service we provide. Customers are asked to rate the speed of answer, courtesy, knowledge/ability and overall service of the customer service representative. Customers are also asked to rate the professionalism, courtesy, ability, timeliness and overall performance of the service provider we have dispatched. We receive approximately 22,000 completed customer satisfaction surveys every month.”
GC Services Limited Partnership
(b-to-b and b-to-c integrated)
Houston, TX
www.gcserv.com
What are your monitoring practices? “Without courtesy, there can be no customer care. Accordingly, the first responsibility of our Quality First coaches and unit managers is to ensure that all representatives provide unflagging courtesy on every single contact. Regardless of how well a representative is able to assist a customer from a technical standpoint, he or she has not met customer and business expectations if our coaches observe even minor breaches in courteous demeanor.”
InfoCision Management Corp.
(b-to-c inbound)
Akron, OH
www.infocision.com
Provide quantifiable results of a specific program. Explain how results were tabulated and how the quality of the program was gauged. “The client estimated the value of each upsell to be $129. With the previous upsell rate of 1.6 percent, 1,000 calls would generate $2,064 in revenue for the client. With the increase [we effected] to 4.6 percent for the upsell rate, we were able to earn $5,934 in revenue for the client on the same 1,000 calls. At our current rate, we will receive 700,000 calls this year and upsell 32,200 customers, which will generate $4,153,800 for the client.”
| Silver Award Winners |
 |
Alta Resources
(b-to-c inbound)
Neenah, WI
www.altaresources.com
What do you do to demonstrate your commitment to staff quality, i.e., training, motivation techniques, etc.?
“As an outsourced service provider, we have the opportunity to partner with some of the most recognized and trusted brand names in the world. As a result, we have been able to take best practices from these organizations and incorporate them into our own culture.”
ePerformax Contact Centers
(b-to-c inbound)
Cordova, TN
www.eperformax.com
Explain how quality has evolved in your contact center, how it is sustained and how it is measured.
“Our performance maximization model provides the foundation for constant evolution and continuous improvement in our company. In order to engage our management team in the use of the model and the continuous improvement of processes, we provide a comprehensive management training track to all front-line supervisors and above. Reps are also offered the opportunity to voluntarily attend the management training in preparation for promotion opportunities.”
Hamilton Contact Center Services
(b-to-b integrated)
Aurora, NE
www.hamiltontm.com
Specifically state your policies on quality and your company’s philosophy/motto on quality.
“Essentially, we have built our culture around Point 8 of management guru W. Edward Demming’s famed 14-point management philosophy — Drive out fear and build trust so everyone can do a better job. By focusing on what caused a breakdown in the system instead of focusing on the individual who incurred the mistake, employees are able to work better after a mistake and without any fear of recrimination.”
NOVO1
(b-to-b outbound)
Laurel, MD
www.novo1.com
Explain how quality has evolved in your contact center, how it is sustained and how it is measured.“Early on, we concluded that growth alone, including new call centers, expensive technology, numerous workstations and thousands of employees, is not the key to teleservices success and long-term client relationships. Quality is...At each stage of [our growth], we carefully evaluated the level of quality provided to each client before moving on to the next stage. With each 20 percent incremental increase in growth, we set as our goal no less than a five percent increase in quality and a 30 percent increase in results (e.g., increased sales/leads).”
Synergy Solutions, Inc.
(b-to-c integrated)
Phoenix, AZ
www.synergysolutionsinc.com
Specifically state your policies on quality and your company’s philosophy/motto on quality.
“Synergy is committed to long-term partnerships and to that effect we only charge our clients for the log time of the up-front CSR. We do not charge for the verification time as we realize that this investment in the extra verification step will ensure stronger customer retention for our clients which in turn increases the value we provide and the strength of our partnership.”
Teleperformance
(b-to-c integrated)
Paris, France
www.teleperformance.com
What is special or unique about your staff that contributes to quality? “One of the most unique aspects of Teleperformance is its entrepreneurial spirit. Teleperformance promotes contact center employment as a career and not as a temporary job. We focus on recruiting from within in order to maintain our in-depth operational know-how. This unwritten and proven policy brings: minimized staff attrition among our managers (supervisors, account managers, support functions, etc.); staff loyalty with strong expertise succession; and information sharing and social interactions.”
Working Solutions
(b-to-c inbound)
Plano, TX
www.workingsol.com
What elements make it easy to do business with your firm? “Ambergris, through its parent TELUS International, a wholly owned subsidiary of
TELUS Corp. (News - Alert)
, has vast amounts of resources from an IT and telecom background to support a total provisioning of technology to a joint sharing of technology perspective. Ambergris is focused on implementing processes that work for each of our clients. Our Business Process Improvement team champions process improvement projects across the organization. Their efforts are focused on metric management, enhancing key metrics such as customer satisfaction and first call resolution scores, as well as capturing best practices within a program and cascading the information to other programs.”
| Bronze Award Winners |
 |
Ambergris Solutions
(b-to-c inbound)
Pasig City, Philippines
www.ambergrissolutions.com
What elements make it easy to do business with your firm?“Ambergris, through its parent TELUS International, a wholly owned subsidiary of TELUS Corp., has vast amounts of resources from an IT and telecom background to support a total provisioning of technology to a joint sharing of technology perspective. Ambergris is focused on implementing processes that work for each of our clients. Our Business Process Improvement team champions process improvement projects across the organization. Their efforts are focused on metric management, enhancing key metrics such as customer satisfaction and first call resolution scores, as well as capturing best practices within a program and cascading the information to other programs.”
Intelenet Global Services
(b-to-b and b-to-c integrated)
Plano, TX
www.intelenetglobal.com
What do you do to demonstrate your commitment to staff quality, i.e, training, motivational techniques, etc.? Intelenet Global Services utilizes the “train the trainer” approach to handle domain- and process-related training specific to our client accounts. The client training team trains Intelenet Global Services trainers on the business domain of the client and also on those processes that are to be offshored. These trainers then train the offshore delivery team comprising of agents and other support personnel to be deployed for the particular account. This ensures correct information is being transferred offshore to ensure high quality.”
Telvista Inc.
(b-to-b and b-to-c integrated)
Dallas, TX
www.telvista.com
Explain how quality has evolved in your contact center, how it is sustained and how it is measured. “As consumers have become more accustomed to contact centers and more demanding of the service and support they receive, it has become less important to focus on call mechanics and metrics, and more important to focus on customer satisfaction and the overall customer experience.”
The Connection
(b-to-c integrated)
Burnsville, MD
www.the-connection.com
Include specific information on the types of technologies you use to enhance quality.“Clients access our Web Quality Plus (WQP) system through a secure link to monitor and print custom reports detailing specific areas of feedback. WQP is unique in that it provides a “need help” button, which submits a client’s question directly to the Quality Assurance Manager via e-mail. Each question or concern is addressed by the next business day. The user friendliness of the WQP system is unique to the call center industry and sets The Connection apart from its competitors.”CIS
Bob Stutz is Senior Vice President and General Manager CRM Global Strategy and Product at
SAP (News - Alert)
AG.
By Tracey E. Schelmetic
Editorial Director,
Customer Inter@ction Solutions
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